The checklist
The fall seal-up, place by place
Print it, or keep it on your phone. Tick what you can reach; we'll do the rest on the visit.
Outside
Walk the walls with a flashlight on a clear afternoon.
Gaps where pipes, cables and meters enter the wall
Mortar joints in the foundation, especially behind shrubs
Soffit corners and the line where the porch roof meets the wall
Window and door frames, and the bottom of every door
Dryer and bath vents: flaps closed, screens whole
Cellar and crawlspace
Go down on a dry day, with a flashlight and a mirror.
Daylight where the sill meets the stone
Gaps around the oil line, water main and electric entry
Dirt corners and old coal chutes
Anything stored against the walls: move it a hand's width out
Damp wood: sills, posts, floor joists
Attic and roofline
Stay on the boards, and wear a headlamp.
Light coming through at the eaves
Loose or missing vent screens
Where the chimney passes through the roof
Insulation pushed aside or matted down into runs
Stored boxes: lift one and look underneath
Living space
The last place to check, and the first place you'd notice.
Gaps behind the stove and refrigerator
Under-sink cabinets: the hole around the pipe
Pantry: pasta, flour and pet food in sealed tins
The inside of the cellar door, at the bottom
Fireplace damper closed when not in use
What we use
Gaps closed with metal, not foam
A mouse can chew foam, and a squirrel can chew most of a soffit. We close gaps with steel mesh, metal flashing and mortar, set so there's no edge to lift. Where a gap is part of the building's structure we say so and leave it to a mason or a carpenter.
Steel mesh around pipes and cables
Metal flashing at corners and the roofline
Mortar in foundation joints
Door sweeps fitted if you'd like them
Up top
The chimney deserves its own look
Old chimneys have lifted flashing, open flues and gaps where the brick meets the roof. We inspect them from the ground and from the attic side. If a cap or a repair is needed, a chimney sweep or a roofer does it, and we tell you what we saw.
About the fall visit
How long does the visit take?
A house with a cellar and an attic usually takes a morning. We tell you when we arrive, and you can follow us or not.
Do I have to empty the cellar?
No. Move what you can a hand's width from the walls, and we work around the rest.
What do I get at the end?
A written report that names each place we sealed and anything we couldn't, and what we'd do next.
Book your fall walk-through
We bring the mesh, the flashlight and the checklist.